Cello For All, Part 1: Laura Metcalf

Adventurous listening does not always require leaving your sonic comfort zone. Sometimes unfamiliar music can instantly become an old friend, expanding your world without shattering it. And sometimes the opposite is the case - and wonderfully so. Those are the ends of the spectrum of new music explored by two cellists, Laura Metcalf and Michael Nicolas, who will both release excellent debut albums on Sono Luminus this spring. 

First up is Laura Metcalf, who has been on the scene for a number of years now playing in the ensembles Sybarite5, a string quintet mostly known for its Radiohead arrangements, and Break of Reality, a "cello rock band" that does a spirited take on the Game Of Thrones theme, among other things.

Metcalf's First Day is something quite different from her other activities, finding her assaying eight pieces from around the world and through the centuries with the sensitive accompaniment of pianist Matei Varga. The album opens beautifully with Varga's stylish introduction to Graciela y Buenos Aires by José Bragato, an Argentinian cellist, composer and conductor who recently celebrated his 100th birthday. You don't have to know the first thing about Bragato to hear his connection to "nuevo tango" and Astor Piazzola, with whom he in fact played in the 1950's. When Metcalf joins in, her tone is flawless and warm and her rhythmic command is thrilling and almost imperious in the faster portions. Instantly you know you're in good hands with this duo, and the rest of the album does not disappoint. 

If Bragato represents the the modern, urban Argentina, later in the album Metcalf and Varga take a trip to the countryside with Alberto Ginastera's Pampeana No. 2, Op. 21. Full of folky melodies and touched with nostalgia, the Pampeana covers a lot of ground in ten minutes. But first we visit an eastern European past in Bohuslav Martinu's Variations on a Slovakian Theme, with Metacalf's approach mercifully free of schmalz. She seems more invested in the sturdiness of the old melodies than in over-emoting. Martinu's piece is essentially episodic but if you want a sonata, First Day has it with George Enescu's Sonata In F Minor, a recently discovered work written when the Romanian composer was only 17. It may have a youthful energy and sparkle, but it is a fully mature work in the romantic vein and Metcalf and Varga have done a real service by bringing it to light. 

North America and the 21st Century are also well-represented on The First Day, with Phantasie by Caleb Burhans, a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, and Hard-Knock Stomp by Dan Visconti, whose work is often performed by Sybarite5. The first lives up to it's title, with lush cello lines interacting with repetitive and ruminative piano. Visconti's is the more radical work, full of sly, bluesy riffs and some dense knotty passages, all of which Metcalf handles with ease. It's a lot of fun and the levity it injects into the album sequence is welcome. It also leads perfectly into the oldest piece here, Marin Marais' Variations on "La Folia" from 1701, one folly in dialog with another. 

The Marais is elegant, tuneful, and filled with drawing-room dance rhythms - in short, a delight. But Metcalf saves a real delight for another French piece: the closing track, Francis Poulenc's Les chemins de l'amour. This piece, from 1940, is Poulenc's setting of words by Jean Anouilh and asks the cellist to sing along as she plays. Metcalf is pure charm here, playing the waltz with absolute lightness and singing in a clear unmannered soprano. It's a most satisfying ending to a rich and rewarding album, which quickly establishes Laura Metcalf on her own as a musician of real note. Brava!

The First Day is out on April 29th and Metcalf and Varga will be playing selections on April 27th at Subculture on Bleecker Street.

Vinyl And Grit: RSD 16

There is a lot of vinyl in the world, and much of it is by Roy Ayers (and much of the rest is by Willie Bobo). That was one conclusion I came to while flipping through the stacks of wax at Superior Elevation Records in a gritty section of Bushwick this past Record Store Day. I now understand why Ayers called his group Ubiquity. I also now realize that I don't know much of his music, which is a failing I plan to rectify thanks to Spotify. 

Speaking of the streaming service, it has forever altered the way I shop for vinyl. Now I have an ongoing calculation in my head, with some kind of equation of desirability, availability, price, and condition helping me determine how I will ultimately allocate my limited budget of both cash and storage space. The end result of all of this sorting is another dialogue in my head relating to all the records I don't choose to buy, a dialogue that mostly dissipates at the end of the shopping trip. Not this time, though. Using my search terms in Spotify, I reconstructed the trail I followed as I flipped and flipped, creating the playlist below. So now I - and you - can follow up on those tangents. 

But fear not, record stores, I am still interested in buying and my time at Superior Elevation led to some very happy purchases. In fact, my wife declared it my "best Record Store Day ever!" Part of the credit goes of course to the shop itself, which is spacious, well-organized, and friendly. Superior Elevation was my favorite vendor at last year's Brooklyn Flea record fair, so I had been meaning to get out there for a while. Their RSD event was a draw, as they were celebrating their first anniversary with a rotating cast of DJ's, sales, and freebies. I also had a 15% off coupon they had given me at the Flea - good move.

Good vibes and good vinyl at Superior Elevation

Within minutes of entering I had my hands on a copy of Fotheringay's first album, which is something I've wanted for a while. Fotheringay was the band formed by Sandy Denny with Trevor Lucas after she left Fairport Convention and I like it better than anything by that band, with one perfect song after another.It wasn't the original pressing but a nice reissue on Carthage from the 80's, complete with the gatefold cover. Score.

I went through the rest of their rock section but, let's face it, that's the bread and butter of my collection. Superior has a standout soul-funk section, though, so I was elbow-deep in there for a while and finally ended up with Law Of The Land from 1973 by The Undisputed Truth. For some reason, this 70's Motown group has been left behind in the reissue boom, with much of their stuff beyond the greatest hits (Smiling Faces Sometimes, for one) largely forgotten. The thing I love about them is that they were the perfect laboratory for psychedelic-soul genius Norman Whitfield. He just lets every epic, widescreen impulse burst into perfect reality, as on the title track. There's also a great cover of Dave Mason's Feelin' Alright, which is one of those songs I can't get enough versions of. Sold.

Next up was reggae, which was a smaller section but full of interesting stuff, much of it pricy. I was very intrigued with a Gregory Isaacs collection but double checked and found that I already have it with a different cover - saved by the internet! I did find a real gem though, a Jamaican pressing of Derrick Harriott's 14 Chart Buster Hits, which is a stunning retrospective of the seminal singer-producer's biggest songs from 1962-71, including great takes on Close To Me and Have You Seen Her, along with a number of sweet self-penned tunes, many of which should be revived by contemporary singers looking for something new.

While I was looking through the jazz, the DJ was playing a fantastic late disco song that had me dancing. I asked him what it was and it was nobody I had heard of (but wish I could remember!), but he added "It's really a lost Leon Ware album," referring to the singer-songwriter-producer best known for his work on Marvin Gaye's I Want You. Before going to pay, I casually thumbed through some sale items, coming across Nuff Said, which may the great lost Ike & Tina album - coincidentally featuring six Leon Ware co-writes. It was kismet and it was $2.00 for a super-funky and consistent album. Done deal.

Another conclusion I came to before paying was that if you have any vintage Brazilian or African vinyl, you can practically name your price. I will not be cashing in on my Chico Buarque albums anytime soon, however - I like them too much! In contrast to that very expensive stock were the free albums on the sidewalk, many put out to pasture due to their rough condition. One I'm glad I grabbed was Chico Hamilton's El Chico, featuring the great Gabor Szabo on guitar, shining especially bright on a sublime version of People. Some of the album, in original mono, is unplayable - but I might never have heard it otherwise. That's the magic of record shopping, and I got a big hit of it on Saturday. How did you spend the day?



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Top 10 Unlikely Covers

I'm a big fan of artists stepping out of their comfort zone - or maybe it's really our comfort zone - and covering a song that would seem to be out of their bailiwick. Exploiting what could be called the "sincerity gap," wherein a song that seems kind of like a joke is given a new level of emotion, is often a key to success. For exhibit A see number one on my list of Top Ten Unlikely Covers. What are your favorites?

Aztec Camera - Jump Maybe I suck because this is my favorite Aztec Camera recording and I know they are a bit of a sacred cow. I'm a big Van Halen fan (DLR years only!) so I was delighted to hear a completely different approach to the splashy, synth-driven MTV monster that was Jump. The best thing about this was the absolute lack of irony. Something tells me Roddy Frame likes VH as much as I do. Still waiting on that Hot For Teacher cover.

Natalie Prass - Caught Up In The Rapture

As I noted in my review of her show at Bowery Ballroom last year, the Spacebomb chanteuse is a sucker for slinky R&B. On this version of the Anita Baker smash from 1986, she put her mouth where her moneymaker is. Wait, that didn't come out right...just listen.

Sly & The Family Stone - Que Sera Sera
After There's A Riot Going On Sly's rep started going downhill, with blown concerts and "unreliable" behavior alienating fans, critics, and collaborators. He didn't necessarily help his cause by covering a song made famous by Doris Day, sung here by sister Rose Stone. But when he wails on the chorus, it sounds like he means every word. 

The Wailers - Sugar Sugar
While the Monkees were a fake rock group that became real, The Archies, being cartoons, never had that opportunity. They weren't bad, they were just drawn that way. But the songs were real enough and Sugar Sugar was as good as any other bubblegum song. After all, Jeff Barry wrote most of the songs for the real groups, too. But when The Wailers put it to a hip-swiveling rocksteady groove it took on a different connotation. A couple of years later Bob was singing about Marcus who had candy tar all over his chocolate bar in Kinky Reggae - wonder where he got that idea?

Radiohead - Nobody Does It Better
This is firmly in the Aztec Camera camp. You can just tell that Thom Yorke thinks this classic James Bond theme by Carly Simon is a fabulous song. He really gives it his all and it helps that it fits his voice like a glove. I wonder if there's a studio recording of this somewhere in the Radiohead archives.

Emmylou Harris - May This Be Love
We probably have Daniel Lanois to thank for getting Emmylou to explore this deep cut from Are You Experienced? No matter whose idea it was, it is just gorgeous and invites a whole new understanding of Hendrix's songcraft. 

The Isley Brothers - Love The One You're With
By 1970, The Isley Brothers had earned the right to do pretty much whatever they wanted, having had their first hit in 1959. Still, one would not have pegged them to be Stephen Stills fans. One thing that's cool about their version is that they play it fairly straight, adding just a little grit to the original, which was already little funky, and reveling in the harmonies.

Hole - Credit In The Straight World
There is something so self-contained, even precious, about the one album released by Young Marble Giants, that until I heard this it was unimaginable that someone would cover one of their songs. It was a canny choice for Hole, however, as it fit their sound nicely while also providing some more melodic colors to Live Through This. It was also a nice bit of curation and likely introduced many people to the genius of YMG.

Yo La Tengo - Friday I'm In Love
While my favorite Yo La Tengo usually involves Ira Kaplan wailing on his guitar, they do have a nice sideline in covers, exemplified by their lovely folk-rock take on this 90's classic. The original version by The Cure seemed a little unlikely as well, pushing Robert Smith and co. toward the environs of shimmering pop.

The Staples Singers - Slippery People

While the lyrical content of the Talking Heads song might seem a little more oblique than the average gospel song, there was no doubt about the origin of those call and response vocals. The Staples Singers were already legends when they put this out but their cover version reawakened interest in their career for a whole new audience. In any case, Mavis Staples must have really connected with the song as she still performs it regularly.

Bonus Cut:

Freddie Hubbard - Cold Turkey
Here's one from another side of the aisle. Jazz musicians covering pop songs goes back to at least the 30's and we even had folks like Ramsay Lewis giving the treatment to Beatles songs in the late 60's. But hearing hard-charging Miles Davis protege Hubbard take on John Lennon's heroin-withdrawal nightmare of a song has a bit more of a frisson than the usual pop-jazz stylings you would expect. Unlike some other songs in this vein, I doubt this was a bid for pop success!

Unfortunately, even in today's streaming-centric world, there is no one place that I could find that had complete versions of all these songs. This YouTube playlist is the best I could do...What are your favorites?

Merle Haggard: No Stranger To Me

I'm sure Mark Seliger won't mind me borrowing this photo.
He started all of this anyway.

I'm a country music dilettante. There, I said it. All I need is some Hank Williams, Dwight Yoakam - and Merle Haggard. Sure, Johnny Cash is a monolith and I love some of his stuff (check out his My Mother's Hymn Book to get on my wavelength), but he doesn't touch me like The Hag. Something about vulnerability wrapped up in a tough exterior, combined with jazz-inflected phrasing and great taste in songs makes me take him to heart. 

But it wasn't always that way. I used to say "I like all kinds of music, except country and opera." Eventually, opera seduced me but country was still off limits. My college roommate just reminded me that he turned me onto Hag in junior year but I think that only lasted until I graduated. It was actually photographer Mark Seliger who turned the tide, when he handed me a cassette with Big City, Merle Haggard's 1981 album, with Dwight Yoakam's 1986 classic Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. on Side B.

I fell for the title track of Big City right away, digging the witty lyrics and the tasty update on Western Swing, and soon found myself playing the album regularly. So you can thank Seliger for expanding my horizons - and you can also blame him for the fact that the 80's is my favorite period for the Hag. All Music Guide, I laugh at your 2.5 stars for Out Among The Stars! Any album with Tell Me Something Bad About Tulsa on it is an instant classic, and this one also has My Life's Been Grand and Bleachers. The decade also included such gems as Back To The Barrooms, Kern River and Chill Factor, which in addition to the classic title track also contains Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star, a song I sang to my daughter for years. 

Sure some of the production gets a little glossy but that contrasts nicely with his increasingly weathered voice and he always makes sure to keep a band feel and shoehorn in a tidy solo on sax, piano or guitar. Like many cultural phenomena, Hag's 80's actually began at the end of the previous decade, on 1979's Serving 190 Proof, which opens with Footlights, surely one of the greatest "it's tough to be famous" songs ever. Check out the astonishing use of the word "nearly" in this killer verse:

I throw my old guitar across the stage and
Then my bassman takes the ball
And the crowd goes nearly wild to see
My guitar nearly fall

Sigh. Sheer brilliance. It was probably jealousy that led Bob Dylan to make those remarks last year. I love Dylan like life itself but he wishes he could nearly have written Footlights. I had the pleasure of seeing the Hag at Tramps in the mid-90's and when he opened with Footlights I knew we were in for a good night. I was there with Hag superfan Robert Marlowe* who had helped me get further into his music. 

Rob confirmed that this was a special show. Part of it was the setlist and the fact that Hag had a full band, including a guy who just played rhythm on an acoustic guitar, which matters so much for texture. Hag also took a lot of left-field guitar solos that always ended up in the just the right place. Just another unexpected thing about a guy I never expected to like.

And now he's gone, another towering musical figure swallowed up by 2016. Remember him tonight with some of my favorite songs and tell me yours.



*The world still awaits Rob's book on Bonnie Owens, who was married to both Haggard and Buck Owens. 

Skylark's Liminal Journey

The world of contemporary classical music, like all music, is full of niches. But it may not get more niche than an album of recent choral music around the theme of "the dream state at the end of life." But that is indeed what the vocal ensemble Skylark has delivered with Crossing Over, their new release on Sono Luminus. Having recently watched a great friend succumb to pancreatic cancer, I was actually completely uninterested, even resistant, to listening to anything that purported to describe what he had gone through. I also wasn't sure that anything other than tuneless primal screaming could express how I felt about the situation. 

But listen I did and found that I had been taking Skylark's concept a bit too literally. Crossing Over is, in fact, a superbly sung and brilliantly sequenced album that makes you think about death about as much as listening to Mozart's Requiem makes you think about death. It's in there, for sure, but despite the booklet's heavy handed subtitles (Denial, My time has come, etc.) there need be no utility to the collection. Overall, it is a meditative and elevating listening experience, with the rich, warm recording seeming to surround you with the perfectly balanced voices of the ensemble.

The composers chosen by Skylark's leader Matthew Guard range from those firmly established in the 20th century canon, like John Tavener and William Schuman, to younger musicians like Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Daniel Elder. It's Elder's Elegy that opens the album with a beautiful evocation of Taps emerging from a cloud of voices. By Elder's hand the overly familiar melody is imbued with a new gravity that may surprise you. 

Tavener is of course the composer Paul McCartney picked to lend a little weight to the releases on The Beatles' Apple Label, which put out his The Whale in 1970. Featured here is Butterfly Dreams from 2003, a short eight-part piece that explores a variety of moods, even touching on the primal scream in No. 6. The Butterfly: My Most Horrifying Nightmare. This is a small but important part of Tavener's legacy and we owe a debt of gratitude to Skylark for this definitive rendering of a rarely performed piece. 

Heyr bú oss himnum á, Thorvaldsdottir's setting of an Icelandic psalm with the key line "We cannot make a joyful song unless we are moved by love," is somber but shot through with shafts of light. I wasn't looking for further proof of her versatility but I'm glad to have it nonetheless. The longest work on Crossing Over is the world-premiere recording of Robert Vuichard's Heliocentric Meditation, which uses text from John Donne's Meditation XVII ("ask not for whom the bell tolls..."). It has some of Donne's solidity to it's structure and covers a variety of emotions from sorrow to raging against the dying of the light. It may never be performed by a glee club, as have some of Vuichard's other compositions, but it is a valuable addition to the contemporary choral catalog, which goes for the album as a whole.

Don't be scared off by the concept - give Crossing Over a chance. If you love the sound of the human voice you will find it a deeply rewarding journey.

Another recent release from Sono Luminus is not quite so satisfying. Everyone knows that a joke that must be explained is not a joke at all and there is a lot of explaining going on in the liner notes to Serious Business by the Spektral Quartet. The idea is to "look at humor" from different musical angles but the results are not always something you want to hear more than once. Many, Many Cadences by Sky Macklay opens the album and drives its point home with a repetition that seems unnecessary rather than clever. David Remnick's The Ancestral Mousetrap has the virtuoso instrumentalists singing in addition to playing, which might amuse in concert but not in my living room.

Hack by Chris Fisher-Lochhead closes the album with many, many (22) short "transcriptions" of comedians, from Lenny Bruce to Tig Notaro. It may be that you had to be there but these just seem like unfocused fragments. There's nothing terribly wrong with it, musically speaking, but there's not enough to engage me either. 

However, there is one saving grace on Serious Business, and that is the Spektral's absolutely masterful performance of Haydn's String Quartet Opus 33, No. 2 in E-flat major, "The Joke." I'm usually the one saying "Do we really need another recording of this?" when it comes to pieces from the classical era but in this case the answer is resounding YES. The recording is pure perfection and the quartet never oversells Haydn's melodies, with playing that reflects the elegance of the period so exactly that listening feels like time travel. The famous tease of the multiple endings still kills, too. Humor that stands the test of 200-plus years? Now, that's serious business.

Novelty Daughter: Up From Underground

Novelty Daughter stands alone.

"All the best music happens underground," I told Faith Harding, who performs as Novelty Daughter, and she readily agreed. We were indeed below ground, at Elvis Guesthouse in the basement of 85 Avenue A, but both meanings of the word were implied and understood. We were there to celebrate the release of her debut LP, Semigoddess, which crystalizes the sound she has been pursuing since 2013. Marrying her smoky but light soprano to next-level electronics, that sound is intoxicating indeed.

While she is a lover of house and other electronic dance music, she is not a slave to the rhythm. She deploys beats as just another element along with complex counterpoint, dissonance, jazz-inflected chords, and a dazzling variety of textures. But when she brings that hammer down, as on Day Of Inner Fervor, it's a shot of pure pleasure that commands you to move. Remixers should have fun with that one. Another instant-impact track is Shellbody, with a chill-inducing intro of watery chords and diamond-bright notes leading into a contemplative rhythm and some of Harding's most sublime singing.

Novelty Daughter has lyrical game, too, exploring the betwixt and between sensation of being young enough to feel life's endless possibilities but mature enough to feel the pull of its also endless responsibilities. The opening track Not Fair, she recently told The Fader, "is about my confusing relationship with myself. As the title suggests, it's kind of a small tantrum against the notion that this relationship should be secure and fixed, that you are supposed to know know exactly who you are at any given time, when that 'who' is shifting and morphing continuously."

These are complex notions and the music on Semigoddess is not simple, either. There is often tension between the vocal melodies and the music. Rather than going together hand in glove, it feels like the glove is levitating over the hand, which could make for challenging listening for some people. But if you listen actively, you'll find it making more and more sense, and the combination of voice and music just may bewitch you. To fully invite the spell, I suggest vinyl, if you do that - I found it both opened up the sound and gave it more weight. 

Another word about Harding's voice: it's one of the realest things in music today. Watching her sing along to her recorded self with zero hesitation and perfect pitch is akin to a high wire act. The live experience since I last saw her has also been enhanced with an extra player, allowing for more intricacy and flexibility. Double the laptops and keys, double the fun. Three songs on Semigoddess also feature cellist Greg Heffernan, an organic element that fits in perfectly.

Novelty Daughter, now a duo, performing at Elvis Guesthouse.

The show at Elvis Guesthouse also featured Suzi Analogue, Star Eyes and DJ Earl. I was only able to stay for the first but very glad I did. Her electronics always had an eye on keeping the crowd moving while also being bright and busy enough to almost be Baroque. Patterns would develop, meet new patterns and then there would be a pattern of patterns, making for a kaleidoscopic effect. In brief, she knows what she's doing, sings nice, and may just love 68 Million Shades as much as I still do.

Getting back to Semigoddess, I'm just going to say that it is highly unlikely that there will be a more original debut album - or better electronic music, for that matter - in 2016. Novelty Daughter is coming up from underground - will you be there to greet her?

The Spring Songs Project

I think everyone's parents have at least one special thing that they do, a magic trick, a funny voice, etc. Like my mom. She could make her fingers dance and do an impeccable "You must pay the rent" routine, but maybe best of all was when she let her hands fly up and down the keyboard to play The Rustle Of Spring. I could never get enough of this over the top piece of piano fluff, which I later learned was by the Norwegian composer Christian Sinding.

In honor of that experience, and of the first day of spring, I am launching The Spring Songs Project. Consisting of a collaborative playlist and a Facebook event, this project will give anyone who joins an opportunity to share a favorite spring song or two by adding it  to the list or posting it on the Facebook page. The playlist will be open until April 2nd and at that time we should have an impressive and wide-ranging collection of songs celebrating this most verdant of seasons. 

Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/474793046058326/

I seeded the playlist with a few songs that feel like spring to me - and it's already tripled in size. Come be a part of it! 

https://open.spotify.com/user/jshatan/playlist/1dzzOn0kbG5yprLntrA3RJ

Benji Hughes Is A Pink Hippo

One clueless critic called this an oil painting. Sigh.

Dedicated to Jan Audun Uretsky, 1960-Still Here

Concert companion, multi-talented artist, friend in fair weather and foul

Imagine you're drowning in a vast ocean. Nothing around - no boats, no land, no hope. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you spot a pool floatie, say a cute pink hippo. It's your only chance at survival but would you have too much (snort) dignity to grab on? After all, there's nothing like disaster to bring ourselves face to face with ourselves. And when confronted with myself, I met someone who hesitated - for the merest moment - to grab onto that blow-up toy. Unbelievable, right?

I'm talking about the moment about halfway through my first listen to Songs In The Key Of Animals by Benji Hughes. That's when Sugartree started playing, with its absurdly exuberant "Boom boom boom boom shaka laka" chorus. No, I thought, that's really too much. Not having it. Of course that was after Shark Attack!!!!!!!!!!!, with its screaming females, and the ridiculous declarations of Girls Love Shoes ("We hold these truths to be self-evident: not all shoes are created equal."). I had also been told that life was like a peacock party. I almost turned the thing off. Who the hell was Benji Hughes anyway?

But I kept listening, and I kept coming back day after day until I found my grip on Benji's pink hippo tightening. What first seemed a simplistic and silly exercise began to move into the realm of the deceptively simple and the sheerly joyous. Such is his skill with an instant-impact melody that I wasn't entirely surprised to learn that Hughes has kept the lights on by writing jingles for clients like Verizon, GE and Captain Morgan. But I was surprised to find that he had been in a band called Muscadine with none other than Jonathan Wilson back in the late 90's. So he's got some deep roots, including those planted on A Love Extreme, his sprawling and somewhat unformed debut from 2008.

Animals was recorded over two years with a cast of usual suspects from records by Father John Misty and Wilson, along with several artists who have solid careers on their own, like Meshell Ndegeocello, Eleni Mandell and King Khan. This gives the album a party atmosphere and a sense of collective effort, with Benji's baritone rasp often shadowed by two or three female vocalists. Sometimes he even magnanimously lets them take the lead, but the disco-glam-Nilsson-melancholy point of view is all his. 

While the album often uses irrational exuberance to chase back the dark, Hughes is unafraid of delving right into the wistful mystic, never more so than on the instrumental Song For Nancy. Other critics have complained that there is nothing to it, but I say it's the perfect soundtrack for when you just can't take another thing happening in your life. And for those who would complain that Hughes is too repetitive, I would point them to Marc Bolan who answered similar gripes by saying, "Repetition comes into my songs a lot because I think my lyrics are so obscure that they need to be hammered home." In the end, I envy those writers who have put this album down. After all, you wouldn't grab that pink hippo unless you really needed it, so I guess everything's going alright in their lives. Lucky them.

I could go on about the grooves and the textures or pontificate about lyrics like these, from ? Take You Home, the perfect closing-time closing track: "When it's wintertime, and you wish it was still fall/When you wanna leave, and there ain't no leaves at all/You wanna get lost in the woods but there ain't no trees that tall..." but I think I'll just leave it here. If you're drowning, trust me, you'll need this pink hippo.

Benji Hughes will be at Rough Trade on March 16th (and so will I) and hopefully at another location near you. In the meantime, in addition to digging the album, give a listen to Songs In The Key Of Hughes, a playlist of music by fellow travelers alongside songs that popped into my head while listening to his record.

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Best Of 15: The Rest

I had planned to put paid to 2015 several weeks ago, before the loss of David Bowie tilted everything off axis. Even though it will only put me further behind, I'm going to plow ahead with one last post about last year. The music deserves it.

When you listen to as much music as I do, it's never all going to be covered by the other entries in the Best Of 15 series (see below for the list). Hence, The Rest. Music included in this entry falls into three main categories: records that were released too late to be considered for the Top 20, great stuff I didn't have a chance to write about, and items from my mid-year report that did not stay at the top of my list or fall into specific genres like reggae or hip hop.

I'll now do my best to right those wrongs. Even so, I'll be leaving out a lot - like the Lloyd Price funk I discovered after reading his memoir, or that amazing Derek & The Dominoes bootleg that tended towards space rock, or the vintage Glass Harp album I scored in Austin...you get the idea. If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you will get clued into this anecdotal listening as it happens. 

Now that it's 2016, I have archived 2015's Of Note playlist here and started this year's here. Follow the latter to keep up with my current listening. Time for one last look in the rear view mirror...

Too Late 

They coulda been contenders.

The rebuilding of Baroness after their horrific bus accident in 2013 has been an inspiration to all of us whose lives have been bifurcated by a before and after.  Purple, their fifth album, might have hit my Top 20 had it been released two weeks earlier - it's that good. With their new rhythm section, featuring the titanic Sebastian Thomson (also of Trans Am) on drums, now fully integrated, the band can soar, stutter and stop on a dime. The technical proficiency is there to serve the songs, however, not act as a crutch, and these are some of the most emotionally connected songs they've yet written. 

Part of the idea of metal, after all, is to express psychic agony with the sounds and descriptions of physical pain. That makes it an all too perfect medium for main songwriter John Baizley to explore some of the experience of being grievously injured. But even without knowing about all that, the songs are relatable,  their power a direct injection to the veins. If you like music of a certain weight that isn't simply aiming for extremes, Baroness is at the top of the heap and Purple finds them at the top of their game. 

See also: Shadows by Valkyrie, the side project of Baroness guitar man Peter Adams. It is, as they say, epic, even if the vocals don't always transcend the genre. 

Ryuichi Sakamoto knows a thing or two about epic, having scored Little Buddha, The Last Emperor, and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, among others. He also keeps busy with a variety of chamber, orchestral and electronic music, all of which come into play for The Revenant, Alejandro Iñárritu's Oscar-nom gobbling masterpiece. Sakamoto and his collaborators Alvo Noto and Bryce Dessner find the perfect tonal palette, an earthy but elevated combination of strings, percussion and electronics. It follows the line of the movie but also has a strength on its own. Even if you'd rather not see Leo DiCaprio in extremis ursinus this soundtrack is worth a listen.

I Want To Tell You

Time may be a flat circle but that doesn't mean I have enough of it.

Leave it to Mojo magazine to point me to the wonderful Stairway, a "new age" project featuring ex-Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty. As unlikely as the story behind the group is, it's even more so how good all their music is. Somehow they avoid many of the genre's worst tropes (and most of the 80's as well) to create beguiling miniatures. Most of the pieces are circular in form but manage to keep moving forward. The most successful tracks on new compilation Pearls Of The Deep incorporate "world music" rhythms, a flashback to some of the new textures McCarty and The Yardbirds brought to 60's rock. Grab a dose of their big calm for these tumultuous times. 

Another reissue that sounds better than ever is Simple Minds' Sparkle In The Rain, released in a feature-packed box set including live takes, remixes and videos. But the real glints in the darkness flash off the newly remastered original album. I guess Steve Lillywhite finally realized the error of his over-compressed ways because what he has achieved here in opening up the sound is phenomenal. Now Jim Kerr and co's last masterpiece finally sounds as detailed and massive as it always should have. Spoiler alert: guitarist Charlie Burchill is on this record after all.

Back in 2012 I raved about a strange group made up of offshoots from Unknown Mortal Orchestra who called themselves Opossom. Now they're back as Silicon and Personal Computer finds them more outré - and more sensual - than ever. Who cares if you know what the joke ultimately is - hop on for a wild and witty ride.

Speaking of jokes, Chastity Belt started out as one, something for a group of girls to do when the party needed livening up. Then they discovered they can write real songs; Time To Go Home is the charming, heartfelt result. 

Sometimes when a band as seismic as Radiohead goes quiet, other artists fill in the space left behind. It's probably reductive to categorize Aero Flynn, Floating Points, and C. Duncan as such but they all touch on aspects of that sound. Check out Aero Flynn, Elaenia, and the Mercury-prize nominated Architect and see if you agree.

Radiohead fans often find entree into the world of contemporary classical music via the fantastic soundscapes of Olivier Messiaen. They would also be wise to check out his contemporary Henri Dutilleux and a recent album by Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra would be an excellent introduction.

Elaenia led me to Marhaba, a four-track album by Maalem Mahmoud Guinia, a Moroccan singer and virtuoso player of the guembri, an Arabic lute. Floating Points contributes electronics to the first track and producer James Holden adds some subtle treatments to the other three songs. East meets west in hypnotic fashion and it all sounds perfectly natural.

Also delivering a fine line in hypnosis is Nico Jaar. I'm not quite sure why he didn't just put out an album called Nymphs - but if you put all the parts together, it makes quite a nice playlist.

Back in January, there was an hilarious (or depressing, take your pick) article in The New York Times about "rock music" being back. Strangely enough, they didn't mention great albums by White Reaper, Wand, Novella, Young Rapids, The Coolies, Wilder Maker and Car Seat Headrest. They all come at guitars, bass and drums from different directions, they should all be heard, and they're all on the playlist below. 

At the risk of sounding like an awards ceremony thank you speech going overtime, I would also like to thank Frisk Frugt and Heather Woods Broderick for beautifully assembled, extremely distinctive albums, Yo La Tengo for covering The Cure, Hamilton Leithauser for hand-delivering the stunning Dear God, and Numero Group for reissuing Eyes Of Love, a funky soul celebration recorded by convicts in a correctional facility in 1979. 

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for the after party.

Missed It By That Much 

Refugees from the mid-year Top 20

My year would not have been complete without two excellent albums by the ambient guitar sorceress who goes by the name Noveller. Start with Fantastic Planet.

New music by Patrick Watson is always worthy of celebrating. Love Songs For Robots was certainly up to his standards of beauty, even if the songs didn't always stick around.

Ryley Walker is an extraordinary musician and an impassioned writer and singer. Primrose Green was a huge leap forward for him and if he shakes free of his influences it will be something to hear.

Am I the only one who finds Tame Impala, well, tame? Maybe so, but I'll go on about Pond, the wacky psych band that features musicians who play in Kevin Parker's project, until my face turns blue. Man It Feels Like Space Again was even more out there than their last - which means more FUN.

The multicultural twins who make up Ibeyi seem to have emerged fully formed with their blend of uber-hip beats and sultry singing. I'd like to hear them feeling a little less comfortable but their debut is a real pleasure.

Finally, Bob Dylan. Doesn't he always have the last word? But as much as I loved Shadows In The Night, his take on songs made famous by Sinatra, I want to hear more of the bloody-minded storytelling that made Tempest so special.


You might also enjoy:
Best Of 15: The Top 20
Best Of 15: Out Of The Past
Best Of 15: Reggae
Best Of 15: Hip Hop

Best Of 15: Classical & Composed
Best of 15: Singles & EP's

David Bowie: Life On Earth

I've written before about my relationship to David Bowie's music and art so this need not be a retrospective piece. It's rather an attempt to describe the size and shape of the hole left behind by his sudden and shocking death.

Sudden, that is, to us who weren't aware of his 18 months of living with cancer and its treatment. And shocking because Bowie had been so incredibly present ever since that glorious morning in 2013 when Where Are We Now appeared on our Vimeo feeds as if from the ether. 

Almost ten years of near-silence preceded The Next Day and one thing that brilliant album threw in sharp relief was the low level yearning we had all been living with during that time without Bowie. I can detect the sense that he understood our longing, even if only a little. He could have called the song Where Am I Now?, after all. Now we must contemplate the rest of our lives without him. Part of the shock is also that he was one man who contained multitudes for us and now all of that is gone. Unlike The Beatles, there is no truncated version of Bowie to whom we can all cling, no Paul or Ringo to offer the slightest bit of solace. 

I realize that I'm using "we" more than usual. I don't deign to speak for others, but in the days immediately following Bowie's death I found myself stereotyping madly, searching each silhouette that passed to see if they fit into the classification "Bowie fans." A confident walk, a crisp fashion choice, headphones, good shoes ("Your boots are shit," Marc Bolan told Bowie the first time they met), just searching for any clue that someone felt the way I do about David Robert Jones of Brixton.

This of course was a fool's game because I long ago made the decision to mostly keep my artistic leanings on the inside. In high school when my friends were dying their hair, giving themselves piercings and jailhouse tattoos, and painting their Doc Martens with nail polish, I continued on getting my haircuts from a guy called Paris at Gimbels East and wearing jeans along with worn button down shirts passed down from my father. You wouldn't know from looking at me that Bowie, Pere Ubu and Joy Division were bleeding from my Walkman, not to mention Hendrix and Coltrane. You had to get to know me to know what I was into.

So why should I expect any different from passersby on a street in 2016? It was really just a shellshocked symptom of the loss I felt, the need to be in a group of likeminded people, to believe that I was surrounded by people that got it. Based on my initial skim of social media, I think other people felt the same, hence the "we."

This also reflects the "Bowie spoke to freaks and outsiders" point of view, which is certainly part of the story. "Give me your hands," he implores on Rock'N'Roll Suicide, "You're not alone!" Hearing that, the cozy strum of Soul Love, the tour de force of Sweet Thing-Candidate-Sweet Thing (Reprise), Everyone Says Hi, or any number of other songs, gives me a warm glow of inclusion and belonging. Maybe you feel it, too. And never forget, that acceptance is a two-way street. We who "get it" took Bowie into our hearts and our lives without dismissing any of his quirks as simply "weird." He showed us a way to live and by going along with it, we showed him a way to continue.

Bowie also demonstrated how far out you could go and still be in - not just popularity-wise, but in the human race itself. Recording Low at the tail end of a two-year bender that destroyed his health and probably contributed to the end of his first marriage, he managed to make a break-up album that was both optimistic and futuristic - no blood on his tracks - yet still anchored in emotion. 

Thinking of those cut-outs I examined on the street I also think about others like me, who allowed the various shapes and shades of Bowie's looks to stand in for our inner states, like an action painting of our souls. And while we may not have dressed like him, we took note of the perfect gesture, the well-timed movement, the calibrated gaze, and allowed them to infiltrate us, changing the way we entered a room, sat in a chair, moved on the dance floor. This was the lore of years of study - mime, kabuki, Elvis - passed down and distilled for our daily use.

So while I sometimes sought the collective experience in those first days of grieving, there was also a part of me that wanted to be alone with the sorrow. I stayed off Spotify, where all listening is public, and out of the comment fields, listening mainly to bootlegs and thinking about how I would write this piece. I was somewhat surprised by this response so I went deeper into self-examination. It stopped me in my tracks when I realized the connection between my first child's short life and Bowie's truncated renaissance. My son Jacob (who also had a January birthday) died at 2 1/2 from cancer. Though there is no comparison between my love for Jacob and my attachment to Bowie, there are parallels in the joy I felt when my son was born, so long awaited, and the excitement Bowie's return engendered. 

Then...crushing disappointment and sadness, the air let out of the balloon for good. When Bowie died, that sense of deflation felt very familiar, harmonizing uncomfortably with those dark days of 1999 when my son succumbed to his disease. This realization helped me switch between public and private modes of bereavement around Bowie. I imagine it's possible that there is some other public figure who could inspire such thoughts and feelings - for others, not for me - but I can't think of who that could be. Once again, I suspect I'm not the only one feeling this way, which is why I'm sharing these deeply personal investigations. 

The concert bootlegs did help, and still do. Naturally, my usual source made several additional recordings available: Budapest 1997 (interesting), Paris 1990 (his voice uncharacteristically shot), and two Ziggy- era gems, one from London's Rainbow Theater in 1972, and one from Radio City Music Hall in 1973. I really gravitated to the latter as not only is it an extraordinary performance, but because of where it took place it's very easy for me to picture the surroundings. It's also an audience recording and I find myself relating to the little crowd around the taper. This is my virtual collective experience, listening to these serious Bowie fans react the way I might have had I been there. 

"When's the album coming out?" one of them says after the Spiders play another song from Aladdin Sane, which had yet to be released. "Wow," another says after a beautiful take on Space Oddity. At the end of the show, after the encore of Rock'N'Roll Suicide, one of them simply states: "Unbelievable. Unbelievable." But my favorite moment immediately precedes an intense version of The Supermen. After a spare and spectacular solo performance of Jacques Brel's My Death, we hear some electronic swoops and swooshes causing the crowd to start cheering wildly. "Oh, God," one of my new friends exclaims and another says, "I've never seen anything like it!"

No, he hadn't, and neither had we. Nor shall we, ever again. 

Best Of 15: Singles & EP's

By now we know that not only is the album not dead, but the resurgence of vinyl (and now even cassettes) seems to be mostly album-based. While the black plastic discs are still a tiny part of the overall music market, they are one sector that has shown continuous improvement over the last few years, which is something to celebrate. Even so, there is still a place in the output of artists for short-form releases like singles and EP's. In some cases, an artist will do their best work in this area. In others, it's just a stopgap before their next album. Either way, I would hate for these great songs to get lost in the shuffle - literally - Read on for my favorites from the year just passed.

The Redeemed

If you've been following closely, you will know that I was a big fan of the early EP's of Tahliah Debrett Barnett, who performs as FKA twigs. So I was surprised to find her first album, last year's LP1, to be a bit of a snooze. So I'm happy to report that M3LL155X (pronounced "Melissa") finds FKA twigs at the top of her game, from the fabulously creepy cover and video, to the mesmerizing songs. Producer Boots helps construct dark soundscapes for twigs' melodic and lyrical flights of fancy, without ever letting the momentum lag. I might be the only one who feels this way, but if her EP's are this good, why bother with albums?

Appreciation for the Staple Singers is on the rise with the release earlier this year of Faith & Grace: A Family Journey 1953-1976, the first comprehensive look back at their extraordinary career. Mavis Staples, however, is very much in the present, having made two albums with Wilco's Jeff Tweedy in recent years. While there was nothing truly wrong with those records, they failed to catch fire for me. She's now working with Son Little, a Philadelphia-based musician making a name for himself with an updated take on soul, blues and R&B. Your Good Fortune, the four song EP they put out in the spring, bodes well for the future. All four songs find Mavis in great voice, with the first two written by Little and the last two classics. It's tough to take on Blind Lemon Jefferson's classic See That My Grave Is Kept Clean and make it fresh, but she digs deep and pulls it off, with an energy belying her 76 years. Long may she reign.

Serving No Wine...

In the case of the haunting All Is Forgiven by Alekesam, I'm starting to wonder if it is forgivable to put out a song this cool and then...nothing. Hopefully 2016 will see more to come from the talented duo of Sal Masakela and Sunny Levine.

Moses Sumney is also deeply talented, a singer of originality and spiritual depth and a songwriter who traverses folk, soul, and jazz with the ease of a natural polymath. After last year's brilliant Mid-City Island EP, this year he gave us Seeds and Pleas, two ethereal meditations that are hopefully part of something bigger.

The music of Jordan Lee, released under the name Mutual Benefit, has a rare combination of sturdiness and fragility to it, which makes it enormously appealing. Not For Nothing, his entry in Weathervane Music's Shaking Through series, is a fine countryfied addition to his catalog. As his last full-length album was 2013's brilliant Love's Crushing Diamond I'm hoping for more than one song in 2016!

New Blood

The first time I saw Spires, it was almost like a live rehearsal, but the last time I saw them they tore up the Mercury Lounge in front of an audience that had no idea who they were, blasting through a short set of their hyper-driven psych rock. Their five-song self-titled official debut finds them slightly tamed, but still tunefully pursuing their vision of the late sixties. Keep up with their songs here so you can sing along when you see them live - which you absolutely should.

As a micro-genre, I'm not sure "doom folk" ever took off, but John Joseph Brill's band Burning Beard gained some attention as a prime mover in that area. Now he's on his own and has released a four-song EP, Pieces, and a single, The Grape And The Grain, that are the strongest things he's yet done. He seems to come by his world-weary, sepulchral voice honestly and he knows how to write songs that are built to last. 2016 could be his year.

I came across Novelty Daughter when she opened for TV Girl one sweaty night at Shea Stadium last August. I loved the mix of big beat electronics and her honey-toned jazz-inflected voice, which made for a beguiling combination on stage. Now you can hear it for yourself with Day Of Inner Fervor, the lead off single from her debut album, Semigoddess, out 3/25/16. Be hip - preorder.

Old Favorites Return

My #1 album of 2014 was Hiss Golden Messenger's Lateness Of Dancers, which left me hungry - even starving - for more songs from M.C. Taylor. He had a busy year on the road promoting that brilliant album so I consider us fans lucky to have gotten the Southern Grammar EP, which featured two new tracks alongside a smoking live version of the title song. He Wrote The Book is one of Taylor's warm-blanket specials, a comfort to my soul, and Brother, Do You Know The Road? is the kind of song you can really inhabit, a widescreen tale told through music. New album in October - I think I can contain myself until then.

Beck's Morning Phase had the #2 spot for me in 2014 so my antennae were up when I got notice of a new release at the beginning of the summer. After the acoustic elegies of Morning Phase, I knew he would have something different up his sleeve. But I didn't expect a bid for song of the summer, which is essentially what he gave us with Dreams, a spectacular slice of pure pop, gorgeously produced by Greg Kurstin. Supposedly, there's more delights along these lines coming soon. Until then, keep dancing to Dreams.

Both my wife and I had our mind's blown a few years ago by Any Port In A Storm by Scott & Charlene's Wedding, the project of Craig Dermody, an Australian singer-songwriter. As described in his classic (to me, anyway) song Fakin' NYC, he literally came to NYC with a dollar and a dream, managing to make a go of it with his incisive lyrics and jangly take on 90's slacker rock. The melodies are always great, even when he sings off key, and his guitar solos always give me a buzz. Delivered brings the story forward with three tight new songs along with an epic (for him) and wonderfully sloppy cover of Elton John's Bennie And The Jets. When a formula is this good, why mess with it?

Field Music, the band helmed by David and Peter Brewis, has often gone on hiatus to allow them pursue other projects (see under School Of Language, Slug and Frozen By Sight). While they did release Music for Drifters earlier in 2015, a nice series of instrumental cues for a 1929 documentary about Shetland Island fishermen, it's now been nearly four years since their last album of songs. So I was pretty excited when they dropped The Noisy Days Are Over to tease Commontime, their fifth album, which is due on February 5th. This clever song pokes fun at aging with an intricate and spiky arrangement that owes as much to late Steely Dan as it does to mid-period XTC. Good fun is on the horizon.

Also on the horizon? David Bowie. I'd pull a mic dropping "need I say more?" at this juncture but I do need to say a little more. I mean, have you watched the video for the outrageously stylized Blackstar yet? If not, get to the biggest screen you on which you can find YouTube and watch this thing. Even if there wasn't an album coming on January 8th, Bowie's 69th birthday, this one song would be evidence of an ever-questing master working at top form. I'm still trying to catch up with him on this song and Lazarus, the other single, which is also from a musical he's producing based on The Man Who Fell To Earth. Has the Star Man become a Blackstar? We'll just have to wait and see...

All the songs above, except Novelty Daughter's, are in this playlist - put it on shuffle or play it straight.



You might also enjoy:
Best Of 15: The Top 20
Best Of 15: Out Of The Past
Best Of 15: Reggae
Best Of 15: Hip Hop

Best Of 15: Classical & Composed